YIC
Welcome to the Edinburgh Enterprise Scene
On behalf of Global Entrepreneurship Week, this post briefly introduces readers to the enterprise scene in Edinburgh Scotland.
Here in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh there has never been a better time for new enterprises to take hold. As Scotland continues to increase its start-up potential, Edinburgh is one of the leaders in a new wave of development. Entrepreneurs at every age and in every field will find themselves welcome here to collaborate and create.
A major education hub, Edinburgh’s Universities and Colleges attract top talent from all over the world, and at these institutes enterprise is thriving. From The University of Edinburgh and its Centre for Entrepreneurship Research, to Heriot Watt and Napier Universities, entrepreneurship is on the rise among students. Known for their work in science and technology, these institutes contribute a vibrant energy to the local scene.
Bolstered by strong ties to education, the Edinburgh bioquarter hosts one of the highest rates of new biotech start-ups in the UK. Just one example is University of Edinburgh student Michael Yiin Shih Jie who this year won £50,000 and a year of business support in the Young Innovators Challenge run by Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) for his work in microbes and corrosion. Also in this sector recent start-up UWI Technology received Venture Funding in 2012, and has developed label technology measuring risk of material degradation, with applications from refrigerators to aerospace.
The city is also renowned for its festival season, bringing in millions of visitors annually. Edinburgh local Rosalind Romer is also a former SIE competition winner, having been awarded the top prize in The New Ventures Arts & Cultural category in 2013. Rosalind has developed her idea, Punchline Comedy, into a successful event featuring the rising stars of comedy.
I asked Michelle Rodgers, Director of the Crowdfunding Centre and former Bloom VC CCO her view: “Anywhere with active Universities and active entrepreneurial support has huge potential. Edinburgh in particular is a tech hub with a great number of start-ups coming out.”
New start-ups will find the city boasts a positive support network. Organisations such as SIE, Entrepreneurial Spark and E-Club encourage the right environment for growth, and with new incubators and workspaces such as The Melting Pot, Creative Exchange Leith and Edinburgh Hacklab available, the scene is more active than ever.
As enthusiasm, investment and new ideas continue to grow, Edinburgh entrepreneurs have the potential to add tremendous value to the world.
SIE – Where are we now?
Hi Friends, The Scottish Institute for Enterprise is back for the new academic year! This is what has been going on…
The Young Innovators Challenge (YIC 2013) wrapped up
Winners of The YIC 2013: David Townsend, Victoria Hamilton, Michael Yiin Shih Jie, and Blair Bowman. Winner Laura Jayne Nevin was unable to attend.
Five young entrepreneurs were awarded £50,000 each, plus one year of business support for their ideas. From the press release: “Blair Bowman (Aberdeen University), David Townsend (St Andrews University), Laura Jayne Nevin (Edinburgh College of Art), Michael Yiin Shih Jie (Edinburgh University) and Victoria Hamilton (Strathclyde University) impressed the judges with their business plans during a tense process to claim the £50,000 and one year of dedicated business support to turn their ideas into reality.”
Here are some of the highlights from the competition!
And the winners made the papers
So then all of us at Scottish Institute for Enterprise got together… And said hello to some new faces!
I’m on the left, easily identifiable by my jumping at the wrong time!
These are my fellow interns, they are students at different Colleges and Universities across Scotland. There they will be communicating and interacting with their fellow students to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship!
What is coming up?
SIE competitions including Fresh Ideas and New Ventures
New Ventures has a top prize of £10,000 and is for students with an existing business idea that is ready to go!
Fresh Ideas will award five winners £500 each and is designed to help you learn how to develop an idea!
Regional events and competitions just for you
Well, as an Open University student study is decentralised, a fancy way to say we work remotely and aren’t campus based. We have classes that begin in both October and February, so some students (like me) have had classes throughout the summer and are just about to sit an exam ( …yay). This has the benefit of making education accessible regardless of where you are in Scotland, but it also means we don’t get to say hello face to face so often. With students all over Scotland it would be nice to have some fun activities near home, right?
So with that in mind, this year we’ll have much more regional activities and events that Open University students can take part in!
I’ll be promoting those for you here, on our Facebook group and on twitter at @SIE_OU
And of course we’ll also be running competitions with fun prizes you can win!
Keeping in touch is easy
You can visit The Scottish Institute for Enterprise at www.sie.ac.uk any time for all the information you can handle
Join our Facebook group for Open University students where I’ll be posting regularly with news, stories, ideas and updates
Follow me on twitter at @SIE_OU
And please check back here on Enterprise Everywhere where I’ll be posting events and competitions as well as Enterprise news from home and abroad!
60-second interview with Mahala Le May
Picture from Mahala’s site of the sugar skull workshop
Hi Friends,
The Young Innovators Challenge deadline for entries is NOON on May 31st, which is currently… 60 hours from this very minute (Thank you Siri). As The YIC has a Food & Drink category, here is a sweet interview with Mahala Le May to keep your Idea-Machines running!
Mahala is a designer based here in Scotland who creates beautiful and delicious eating experiences. She was kind enough to share her joy and passion with me, and so I am happy to share it with you too.
I met her at The Mini Makers Faire in Edinburgh last month where she was hosting an excellent workshop decorating Mexican Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls! Check out this video of the skulls made that day, they were excellent.
- Your site mentions you create eating experiences – What was your inspiration?
I’m really interested in how food brings people together, how everyone is effected by it and that everyone has a relationship with eating. And I love food.
- Of your creations and events to date, do you have a favorite?
Create: Eat was an incredible event to be involved with, 25 collaborators – from chefs to lighting designers and mixologist all worked together to put on a only night only dining extravaganza. It was brilliant to meet and work with so many talented people. The piece I made for it ‘canopy of canapés’ turned out exactly how I hoped, it was wonderful to see peoples’ reactions too it.
- Did you get any business advice/assistance from anyone/any group that helped you?
I’ve had business and financial support from Starter For 6 – a programme that helps innovative businesses and from PSYBT, I found business mentors particularly helpful . Also Cultural Enterprise Scotland – who run S46 – arrange lots of courses, advice sessions and had a website packed full of endless help-sheets and resources.
- Do you feel you’ve had errors or failures that you’ve learned from?
Yes of course, it’s part of the process, you almost learn more from what doesn’t work and even though it’s disappointing at the time, experiences -good and bad- allow you to develop and strengthen as a business.
- What gave you the idea to create Mexican sugar skulls?
I originally made the some sugar skulls to decorate a friend’s cake at their Mexican themed wedding. It been really successful as a workshop with both adults and children. I’d like to do an adults only mexican night with tequila, I’d love to see how the skulls would turn out. I want to make my events hands-on and accessible to encourage as many people as possible to get involved and have fun.
- How is the Food and drink industry in Scotland doing in your opinion? A good area to be involved or could it use some shaking up?
There’s a lot about the food industry in general that needs to change, but people are becoming more aware of these issues. In Scotland there are lots of amazing producers and people doing exciting things with food, there’s going to be lots to look forward too as long as everyone keeps communicating.
- Do you have a future dream project you would love to create?
I’ve got lots of ideas and a few projects coming up so I don’t want to give too much away.
- A piece of advice you’d give to a budding edible entrepreneur?
Get out and speak to people, get them tasting and trying out what you make, the best way to know what works and it will give you confidence to grow your business and build up a network of fans – word of mouth is key to your food reputation. Good luck.
Mahala has worked on a variety of projects in the UK and in the Netherlands with Edinburgh University, Jelly and Gin and the Makers Faire among others. She combines a sense of delight with the visual and tactile pleasures of food to produce events, workshops and tastes with a joyful flair. Her creations look gorgeous and extremely tasty!! Eating is such a pleasure, it was delightful to meet someone who has as much fun with it as possible.
I will be very keen to attend the adult mexican-night. My attempts at making sugar skulls at The Makers Faire were trounced by the amazing skills of the children sat next to me – my skulls were somewhat geometric and spartan by comparison to the creativity on display! A second round (And perhaps a little tequila-based courage) and a chance to gobble some treats would suit me fine!
Thanks again, Mahala!
<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/58667046″>Sugar Sugar boogie woogie</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user15810950″>Mahala Le May</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
*Videos and picture taken from http://www.mahalalemay.co.uk
Scottish Food and Drink Industry exports
Hi friends,
As we’ve got The Young Innovators Challenge on over at Scottish Institute for Enterprise, I thought you could use some interesting facts to keep your idea-machines going! The YIC has a food and drink category – And as something of a “foodie” (the only polite way I can think of to say that a dozen Krispy Kremes never make it home in my car), I’ve been really excited learning about this, the most delicious of all industries.
So what does the food & drink industry in Scotland sell, and to whom? Well, I started typing out a bunch of facts and figure here, but it wasn’t too exciting! So I’ve made a wee little infographic of the figures instead. As you might expect, our major drink export is whiskey, and our major food export is salmon! Enjoy!
*Note: I’ve spotted an error – The value of food and drink exports to The USA is 817 million or 0.817 billion, NOT 8.17 billion! The figure is correct and the text is not, an extra zero makes a big difference!
Food & Drink Brands – SIE in Mexico
Hi Friends, here is the second to last post I’ll do about Mexico. Food and Drink style!
The SIE Young Innovators Challenge has a Food and Drink category. So what better time to talk about that which is best in all the world – Food glorious glorious food!
Where we are lends shape to our tastes and fuels the demand for the businesses we start. This is the same all over the world.
SO it’s easy to forget that entrepreneurship doesn’t *have* to be local or use local products – unless we want it to! We are not bound to the market on our doorstep, nor are we bound to produce or enjoy only that which is found on our own turf. IF we were then there would be FAR fewer coffee shops and chocolatiers indeed!
As corny as it sounds, the world is full of open doors, and the potential to go through one remains, who knows what the tastes on the other side will be. Corny like a Midwestern maize field, I know I am 🙂
BUT when it comes to food and drink this is especially true. In what other category are our tastes and interests so wide or so exploratory?
Here’s a few brands I spotted in Mexico that we don’t see as much in Scotland – Your food & drink idea might fly off the shelves there?
King Henry’s – Makers of trail mixes, confections and nuts. These are individual plastic spoons each with a scoop of tamarind paste. In Mexico you can tamarind as raw fruit, in dried salted snacks, in soda and in ice cream.
OK Bubba Gump is not Mexican, but it’s still something you don’t find in Scotland! A chain of seafood restaurants drawing its name from the movie Forrest Gump, with locations in Mexico, USA, Japan and Malaysia, among others. This one was in the departures area at Cancun Intl.
You’ll find Jose Cuervo in Scotland, but you might not find this special edition Frida Kahlo “The Broken Column” package. The painting was a self-portrait of the artist symbolizing the lifelong pain she suffered following an accident in her youth. Not the most cheerful advertisement, but certainly eye catching!
Charricos Banana Flakes. Not so much a flat dehydrated chip like we might find in Holland & Barrett, and more like a crisp! These were good:)
El Yucateco – XXXtra hot Chile Habanero. These can be bought in a pack with three other types of El Yucateco sauces. On the Scoville Heat Scale for hot sauces, this one gets a score of 11,600. For comparison, Sriracha hot sauce is rated as around 1000-2500. Don’t let it touch the sides.
Ron Zacapa – This limited release is an award winning rum from Guatemala and is marketed and distributed by Diageo (As many brands in Scotland are). Though Zacapa is not very widely found in the UK compared to Diageo’s others such as Captain Morgan.
Silver Patrón – Made by Patrón of Mexico using the piña (The heart) of the blue agave plant (Also the source of Agave nectar). You can find this one in Scotland in some select markets.
Young Innovators Challenge 2013!
The Scottish institute for Enterprise is proud to present The Young Innovators Challenge (YIC) 2013. The Scottish Government has given the excellent prize of £300,000 PLUS a years support from Scotland’s top businesses to be shared equally among SIX winning ideas. This will be a life changing experience for all participants.
Did that get your attention? Awesome, what would you like to know?
First things first– YIC has six categories. Each category will have one winning idea that receives £50,000 + one year business support as a prize. What are they?
- Oil & Gas
- Renewable Energy
- Built Environment
- Textile
- Food and Drink
- General
Second– Is YIC for me? The Young Innovators Challenge IS for YOU if:
- You are age 18-24
- If you are in your FINAL year at a Scottish FE or HE Institution (Due to complete your studies Summer 2013)
- Allowed to stay and work in Scotland after graduation
- Can you commit to this project for one year?
The full eligibility criteria is here
Why final year only? If you win you want to be able to work on developing your idea right? Winners have to be able to focus on their new dream jobs without having to drop their studies or training, so that is a requirement.
Third– How do I start this ball rolling?
You start by visiting www.sie.ac.uk/YIC to check the full requirements and put yourself on the mailing list. Then you attend one of our Challenge Labs:
- 16th Feb: Edinburgh and Aberdeen
- 20th Feb: Inverness
- 23rd Feb: Glasgow
The Challenge Labs are free! Reserve your place by visiting –> Eventbrite
If you simply can’t make it to a Challenge Lab that isn’t the end of the line, you will be able to view a video on your relevant category! BUT it really would be great if you can make it to a Lab as it will give you a good advantage.
If you have ANY questions, please visit http://www.sie.ac.uk/YIC And of course OU Innovators please email me at OU.Intern@sie.ac.uk anytime!
Challenge Lab tickets: https://yicchallengelabs.eventbrite.com/
Please visit the YIC Facebook and Twitter: @YIC2013 #YIC2013
https://www.facebook.com/YoungInnovatorsChallenge?ref=ts&fref=ts
Enterprise goes Everywhere 